BENEDICT DE SPINOZA. 



453 



fear it after mounting to this honorable condition. 

 You see, therefore, that I am not holding back in 

 the hope of some better post, but for mere love of 

 quietness, which I think I can in some measure se- 

 cure if I abstain from lecturing in public. Where- 

 fore I heartily beseech you to desire the Most Se- 

 rene Elector that I may be allowed to consider 

 further of this matter." ' 



In 1674 Spinoza had an amusing discussion 

 with a person whose name is withheld on the ex- 

 istence of ghosts. In his first answer Spinoza 

 gives an exquisite turn of politeness to his in- 

 credulity. He was delighted, he says, to get his 

 friend's letter and have news of him : 



" Some people might think it a bad omen that 

 ghosts should be the occasion of your writing to 

 me ; but I find something much better in it when I 

 consider that not only real things, but even trifles 

 of the imagination, may thus do me good service." 



The correspondence continues, on Spinoza's 

 part, iu a tone of courteous banter. At last his 

 friend attempts to overpower him with the au- 

 thority of ancient philosophers. The reply to 

 this last argument has a distinct importance, as 

 showing what were Spinoza's notions about the 

 philosophical systems of Greece : 



" The authority of Plato, Aristotle, and Socra- 

 tes, has not much weight with me. I should have 

 been surprised, indeed, if you had brought for- 

 ward Epicurus, Democritus, Lucretius, or any of 

 the supporters of the doctrine of atoms. It is no 

 wonder that those who devised occult qualities, 

 intentional species, substantial forms, and a thou- 

 sand other fond things, should have imagined 

 ghosts and apparitions, and given ear to old wives 

 to diminish the authority of Democritus, whose 

 fame they so envied that they burned all his books. 

 If you choose to believe these, how can you deny 

 the miracles of the Virgin and all the saints, re- 

 corded by so many renowned philosophers, his- 

 torians, and theologians, of whom one hundred 

 can be produced for one that has recorded a 

 ghost?" 2 



It is obvious that Spinoza's knowledge of 

 Greek philosophy was slight and at second 

 hand ; but it is significant that his sympathy, so 

 far as his knowledge went, was all with Democ- 

 ritus and the atomic school. The sort of meta- 

 physic which in our own time is always clamor- 

 ing against supposed encroachments by physical 

 science would have found no favor in his eyes. 



In 1674 he wrote an important letter explain- 

 ing the difference between his view and Des- 

 cartes's on free-will : 



" I call a thing free if it exists and acts merely 

 1 Ep. LIV. i Ep. LX. 



from the necessary laws of its own nature, but con- 

 strained if it is determined by something else to 

 exist and act in a certain determinate way. Thus 

 God exists necessarily, and yet freely, because he 

 exists by the necessity of his own nature alone. 

 So God freely understands himself and everything 

 else, because it follows solely from the necessity of 

 his own nature that he must understand every- 

 thing. You see, then, that I make freedom consist 

 not in a free decision of the will, but in free ne- 

 cessity. . . . 



" Imagine, if you can, that a stone, while its 

 motion continues, is conscious, and knows that so 

 far as it can it endeavors to persist in its motion. 

 This stone, since it is conscious only of its own 

 endeavor and deeply interested therein (minime 

 indiff'erens), will believe that it is perfectly free 

 and continues in motion for no other reason than 

 that it so wills. Now, such is this freedom of 

 man's will which every one boasts of possessing, 

 and which consists only in this, that men are 

 aware of their own desires and ignorant of the 

 causes by which those desires are determined. So 

 an infant thinks his appetite for milk is free ; so a 

 child in anger thinks his will is for revenge, in 

 fear that it is for flight. Again, a drunkard thinks 

 he speaks of his free-will things which, when 

 sober, he would fain not have spoken." ' 



In 1675 the correspondence with Oldenburg 

 is resumed. 9 By this time the " Ethics " were 

 completely written, and Oldenburg exhorts him to 

 publish the book, though not with such pressing 

 earnestness as he used in former years. He 

 wishes to have some copies sent over to England, 

 and will undertake to dispose of them ; yet he 

 wishes their consignment to him not to be talked 

 of. His temper had probably become less val- 

 iant since he read the " Tractatus Theologico- 

 Politicus." 



Spinoza writes, in answer to Oldenburg, 3 that 

 he did go to Amsterdam to see about printing the 

 " Ethics." But the rumor had gone before him 

 that he had in the press an utterly atheistic book ; 

 and certain theologians had actually commenced 

 proceedings against him. The Cartesians, who 

 had by this time a respectable reputation to pre- 

 serve, were only too glad to find a convenient 

 and edifying occasion for disclaiming Spinoza, 

 and joined eagerly in the cry against him. He 

 determined accordingly to put off the publica- 

 tion ; and the result was that the " Ethics " did not 



1 Ep. LXEL, §§ 2-4. The latest editor of the Letters 

 objects toBrurler's division into paragraphs as pedan- 

 tic : a principle which, if consistently carried out, 

 would make it impossible to give a reference to aDy 

 passage in most of the classics, to say nothing of the 

 chapters and verses in the Bible. 



3 Ep. XVTI, et seq. => Ep. XIX. 



